In the bag

Cookies in the factory

30 January 2017

COOKIES IN THE FACTORY

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS FOR THE TUNISIAN WORKERS

YOUSSTEX, TUNISIA

During the festive month December, we have collected an amount of money to surprise the factory workers in Tunisia. Website visitors were asked the question whether they wanted to keep a €20,- discount themselves or whether they wanted to give the €20,- away to the people in Tunisia who make our jeans. With the collected money, we have bought presents to surprise the 300 factory workers at Yousstex. Wondering what we’ve bought the workers? Stroopwafels of course. After all, there is only one recycled cookie with a Dutch heritage. Recycled, because stroopwafels were originally made from leftover cookie crumbs. Enough about stroopwafels, we weren’t there to bribe them with Dutch cookies. We were actually in Tunisia to hand them over a MUD designed little can of stroopwafels together with a New Year’s Resolution written on one of the colourful cards. The cards were written by you, our customers. And, of course our Denim Expert discussed the latest MUD Jeans as you can see on the photo.

HAPPY FACES

As you can imagine, the factory workers were very happy with some genuine attention from the people behind the fabrics. What we figured again is that Yousstex is an amazing factory. The workers are all very open and talkative and always in for a joke. At the cutting department, they were so enthusiastic about the Stroopwafels, that they were trying to talk us into giving more. They were convinced they needed more stroopwafels in order to perform their jobs well! A different kind of fuel you might say. Overall, everybody was happy to receive a hand-written card as you can see in the picture below.

At the embroidery department, everybody was in full-swing working on jeans for various customers. It doesn’t happen very often, but the workers turned off their machines. The noise of the 12 machines was so overwhelming and of course also this department did not want to miss out on their personal cards and stroopwafels.

FAIR WEAR FOUNDATION

We were again happy to see that the factory, that is audited by the Fair Wear Foundation, Young Designer Program, is in such good shape. The factory meets all the eight labour standards. These Labour Practices are based on internationally recognised standards, which have been set through tripartite negotiation, you can find them here. The last photo is a picture of the bus in which the workers are picked up early in the morning and brought home in the afternoon.